How to Trust Your Parenting Intuition

Parenting is full of a zillion decisions. And that decision fatigue impacts your relationship. How do you know if you’re making the right decisions and choices as a parent? And how do you deal with decision fatigue in a way that is supportive—instead of destructive—to your relationship?

Sometimes the hardest thing to hear is the quiet voice inside — the one that actually knows what to do. Today, I’m sharing three types of people who can threaten your parenting intuition— and how to handle the threat and return to trust. Because trust is the basis of intimacy.

The three types of people who threaten your ability to hear your own parenting intuition are:

• People who love you and want to help you, believe it or not, can threaten your ability to hear your own parenting intuition
• Experts we consult voraciously in our community, in books, and on social media can threaten your ability to hear your own parenting intuition
• And, finally, your own fear is the third voice that threatens your ability to hear your parenting intuition

 

How I found my parenting intuition

When my first child was born, people said, “You’ll love her instantly.”

Maybe I did in one way. But in another way, she was the person who made me a mother. And as our relationship developed, my motherhood heart grew as she grew. She is the one who developed my parenting intuition. So my ability to hear that voice grew with her.

I learned what I valued as a parent because she compelled me to make choices:

• What do I want to feed her?
• How much daycare is right for our family?
• How much activity does she need vs learning to be quiet at home and entertain herself?

I didn’t know the answer to these questions the minute she was born. As I lived with her, I learned the answers to these questions. Questions whose answers changed year by year, and sometimes day by day.

Your parenting intuition is something that BECOMES. Today, I hope to help you learn how to listen to it just a little bit better by exposing you to the people who threatened your ability to hear your parenting intuition.

 

How can the people who love you threaten your parenting intuition?

Let’s start with the number one type of person who threatens your ability to hear your parenting intuition: people who love you. When it comes to people who love you, you might feel a tension between their concern for you and the truth you feel in your body.

Because my mother loved me, she wanted to advise me about raising my children. She was also a pediatric nurse, so she had a unique and professional viewpoint. It made sense that she would want to advise me and it made sense that I would want to listen to her.

But my mother and I had two different approaches when it came to parenting.

From early on, I wanted to be there when my little daughter struggled to sleep. I was destined for a Family Bed Lifestyle before I knew what to call it.

My daughter slept best when she was next to me, but she wasn’t a great sleeper even then. So I was tired, as all new parents are.

When I complained about not sleeping, my mother told me I needed to sleep train my baby. “That little girl has you wrapped around her finger,” my mother would say to me. “She needs to learn the word ‘no.’”

Her suggestion was that I let her cry it out. She taught dozens of her patients to do this and she gave me the method. The problem was, I was totally upside down whenever I heard my daughter crying in her bed.

What I didn’t know then was that I was working through issues from my own childhood. Issues of feeling lonely and abandoned during my parents’ divorce. Hindsight is so clear. Now I can see that, by giving something different to my own children, I healed the child inside myself.

But I didn’t know that then. I just knew everything felt WRONG when I tried the sleep training techniques. I was absolutely tortured by my little girl’s cry, so I never could go more than ten minutes of letting her cry.

Then I was tortured by the idea that I was doing it wrong. That I was spoiling my daughter.

 

The tension between your parenting intuition and advice from others

My mother loved me. And she had professional training. She was trying to help me. But she wasn’t able to hear that I was trying to do things differently. I didn’t yet know what I wanted because I was only just beginning to grow my parenting intuition.

I felt the tension between what my mother suggested and what felt wrong in my own body.
I had a deep, intuitive sense that co-sleeping was right for my family. It wasn’t just a theory — it was something that felt core to how I wanted to mother. That instinct was real and wise.

At the same time, I was exhausted. My baby was struggling to sleep. And my mom, who loved me and had years of medical experience, was telling me what she believed to be true: “That baby will never sleep until she’s out of your bed.”

I was caught in the tension between:

• My instinct for connection & my need for rest
• My mom’s well-meaning concern & the weight of her authority and experience

That tension didn’t mean I was wrong. It meant I was navigating conflicting truths:

• I was a mother built for co-sleeping & I did need sleep and support
• My mom was trying to help, but her solution didn’t fit my heart

Sometimes when you feel torn, it’s not a sign that you’re doing it wrong. It’s a sign that you’re deeply engaged — that you’re listening hard, weighing love, need, and wisdom all at once. And that’s not weakness. That’s what strong parenting actually looks like.

 

Honor your values as a parent

Often, parenting isn’t about a clear right or wrong — it’s about making space for the messiness of competing needs. There will be times when you want something different for your children than the people who love you want for you or for your family.

Honoring your own values is the best way to be a parent to your child. But, when you choose to value something different than the people who love you, you might get confused. That confusion is born of love for the people who disagree with you.

In these moments listening to your own parenting intuition is brave. It’s not failure, although the confusion you feel might feel like failure.

These moments are where you are shaping your unique parenting intuition.

The tension in these moments is the path to finding your parenting intuition. Not a detour. Not a mistake. It’s the way through the confusion to find your own clarity.

When my mom told me I’d never sleep until I let my kids cry it out, it wasn’t cruel. She loved me. She wanted me to feel sane again. And she had a long career as a pediatric nurse — she knew things I didn’t.

But I also knew something she didn’t: I was a mother wired for closeness. I believed in co-sleeping. It felt natural to me, even sacred.

The problem wasn’t that she was wrong. And I wasn’t wrong either.

I was just caught in the tension.

The tension between my belief and my exhaustion. Between my mom’s wisdom and my own inner knowing.

 

Your child chose you to be their parent for a reason

Here’s what I’ve come to believe — that tension? It’s where your parenting intuition is forged.

You don’t arrive at it fully formed. You grow it, by staying in the messy middle long enough to hear yourself clearly.

Are you feeling pulled between advice from someone who loves you and your own instincts that live deep inside your body?

That doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It means you’re becoming the parent your child needs. Your child, who chose you to be their parent.

This is what it feels like to learn to trust your parenting intuition.

I was tired. My daughter wasn’t sleeping. That was rough.

You will do some things differently than your parents or other people who love you very much.

Because it is different, you will doubt yourself. You will wonder if you are doing it wrong, because you are only just beginning. And this beginning feeling repeats itself all the while you are a parent, from sleeping techniques to whether you should send your kid to college or not. Every new stage brings the doubt back.

The doubt is where your parenting intuition is becoming. You’re making your own choices which form and refine your own values.

My mother’s values were the same as mine: we wanted to make our children feel safe and loved. She believed that happened by having firm boundaries and I believed that happened by holding my children until they asked to be put down.

People who love you will threaten your ability to hear your own parenting intuition because when love turns into pressure, it’s hard to tell the difference between their concern and your truth.

How does this tension impact your relationship? There are a lot of resentments that build in grown-child-relationships. The resentment is so confusing because the love is so strong.

But when the concern you feel from your own parents, or from your in-laws, is drowning out your own voice, or the collective voice of you and your partner, you stress the marriage as well.

I’ll address this in today’s date night discussion and give you some prompts so you and your partner can cultivate a shared parenthood heart built on the values you and your partner find most important.

 

Experts threaten your parenting intuition

Let’s move on to the second type of person who threatens your ability to hear your parenting intuition: the sea of experts. Here the tension is about knowing nothing and trying to know everything.

When we become parents, so much is new. We feel humbled by that — and that humility is beautiful.

But for many of us, it drives a scramble for answers. We turn to books, blogs, courses, experts. And while they can offer wisdom, they can also drown out something quieter: your own voice.
One of my clients wanted to feed her kids well. She dove into research — organic food, pesticides, nutrition. But the more she learned, the more confused she became. One study contradicted the next. The choices multiplied.

At the end of the day, she felt fatigued and overwhelmed. So much so that, do you know what she did? She took her kids to McDonalds for dinner. By the end of the day, all that expert advice—instead of inspiring her to do better and better—it overwhelmed her.

She made a choice of survival: let’s just get these kids fed.

She didn’t fail. She just hit the tension. The one between humility and over-responsibility.

Between research and rest. Between wanting to get it right and wanting to stay sane.

And that’s where I think we learn: not from getting it perfectly right, but from noticing what matters most in the middle of the chaos.

 

The tension is the teacher

It’s not just uncomfortable — it’s formative. Like waves that smooth each stone on the shoreline of the Mediterranean Sea.

Wave by wave, the sea smooths away all of the rough spots on each of the rocks we see. The stones you pick up on the shoreline are polished so evenly, it’s easy to forget the pummel each of them has taken inside the waves.

The waves of each parenting moment shape your values. There’s a clarity you find in the multiple decisions. The confusion allows you to see what you care most about. You learn to let go. You learn to double down.

When you stop looking for the best answer, you start to find your answer. That’s where doubt is replaced by your ability to hear your own parenting intuition beating. Louder and louder.

Sometimes trusting the expert means distrusting yourself. And ironically, that leads to decisions that don’t reflect your values at all. So try this:

Let yourself explore what the experts say for a bit. But only as long as you can stand to be pummeled by the waves of contradictions.

Then, after you’ve let your values be smoothed by wave after wave of expert advice, turn down the voice of all those experts and listen to your own parenting intuition. What does it say? Now that you’ve educated it, and let it rest on the shoreline of the life you’re building: What does your motherhood heart say? What does your fatherhood heart say?

Where do you and your partner differ? What values are at the core of those differences? When you can lean into the tension, knowing that discomfort is shaping your parenthood heart, you will be more united and stronger because you’ve taken both perspectives into view.

 

Why your fear threatens your parenting intuition

OK. Finally, let’s tackle the last type of person who threatens your ability to hear your parenting intuition: your own fear. Here the tension is between protecting your child and empowering your child.

Parenting is high-stakes because love runs so deep. When you love a child that much, you want to get it right. You want to protect them — sometimes from the world, sometimes from the pain you knew too well.

I was molested by a high school teacher. So when my own son started working at 14, and his boss offered to drive him to the ski hill in the early dark mornings of winter, I was terrified. Every alarm in my body went off.

I said no. I robbed my son — not intentionally, but still — of a car ride with a man who turned out to be a kind, good, mentoring presence.

Was I wrong? Maybe. But here’s what’s more true:

I was caught in the tension.

The tension between my past and his future. Between protecting and empowering. Between honoring fear and learning to question it.

Fear shouted so loudly, I couldn’t hear the small, steady voice inside that might have said, “This is safe. This is good.”

The tension, again, was a teacher.

It helped me name what I didn’t want to pass on — and also name what still needed healing in me.

I’ve made different decisions since. Not because I magically fixed my fear, but because I started to notice: Fear speaks in urgency. Your parenting intuition speaks in quiet knowing.

It takes time to hear the difference. It takes practice to move from protection to trust. But again — that’s where your values get formed. That’s how you become the parent you’re trying to be.

When you can embrace that the tension you feel is actually your parenthood heart taking shape, the struggle is easier to endure.

 

Grow your parenting intuition

Let’s review the three types of people who threaten your parenthood heart and the types of tension they create:

1. People who love you create a tension between their concern for you and the truth you feel in your body. When you can thank them and understand their concern, it gets easier to feel your own body.
2. The sea of experts creates a tension between knowing nothing and trying to know everything. Give yourself time to be exposed to the experts—which can feel like you’re a rock getting pummeled in the waves—then rest. Digest. And listen for that still small voice inside you that has been smoothed until you found your unique set of values.
3. Your fear creates a tension between protecting your child and empowering your child. This tension is the toughest to endure and the most bewildering for your parenthood heart. It helps me, in these moments, to name what I’m trying to protect, then name the person I’m trying to create. Finally, I ask myself, “How is my protecting getting in the way of the person my child is trying to become?”

Growing a parenting intuition takes time. You’ll make mistakes. When you can stay open to learning from your mistakes, though, your values will become clearer and clearer. You’ll hear your parenting intuition louder and louder.

No one knows your child like you do. And no one else can hear your heart the way you can — if you give it a little space. Step into the tension and trust that it’s shaping something good. Because that tension is your parenthood heart’s teacher.

Date Night Discussion

I used to think parenting was about getting it right from the start. Like if I just decided what kind of parent I wanted to be, I’d execute the plan and raise good humans.

For example, I had a million traditions when we started our family. I believed those traditions would create belonging — that they would anchor my kids in meaning and memory.

But over time, I realized I was drowning in too many searches for meaning. And my children didn’t always feel more connected — they felt pressured to feel something.

That’s when I learned something huge: intimacy is sometimes forged not in the spectacular moments but in the plain, unremarkable ones.

Shared pancakes. Folding laundry while watching television.

I had to get it ‘wrong’ to learn what was right for us.

That’s the pattern.

You resist the tension.

You get it wrong.

You listen again.

You refine.

And that’s how your parenting intuition is born — not in a flash of clarity, but in a long, slow, sacred conversation with life.

Here’s an example:

In the situation with my son and his ski-job-mentor, for example, I was wrestling with two things I valued: I wanted my son to respect his personal boundaries, but I wasn’t sure he was old enough to have them tested.

Later, when I knew the ski-job-mentor better, I regretted that I hadn’t also fostered the values of trusting that the world has things to teach you. That it takes a village to raise a child.

The tension between my value for safety and protection and my value for trust and learning from other people confused me.

But as time passed that tension helped me hear BOTH values more clearly.

Where are you struggling to hear your parenting intuition? Whose voice is making it trickier for you to hear your deepest beliefs? What will help you trust yourself?